


Familiarity

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Force Visions, Gen, Redemption, Reincarnation AU, SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI, and making different choices, based on that crack theory that was circulating a while back, hey guys you know it's a fic by me when it's a, of a sort, or at least moving on from the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:25:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: “I want to know who I am,” Rey says.Later, she will think about how poorly-worded that request was. NotI want to know who my parents are, which might have shown Rey a different vision entirely. No, she saysI want to know who I am– and the Force obliges her.





	Familiarity

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this weeks ago, only just got around to posting it.

** Familiarity **

From the moment Rey first lays eyes on Luke Skywalker on Ach-To, she feels a sense of aching familiarity. It’s not something she can put a finger on, but it’s there nonetheless. For a moment, standing there, everything feels undeniably _right_.

And then, of course, Luke throws away his lightsaber and walks away from her – from the last hopes of the galaxy – and the moment is broken, a feeling of _wrongness_ rushing in to replace it.

Rey can’t shake that feeling of wrongness in the days that follow. She doesn’t really know Luke Skywalker (except for the part of her which feels she does), but his callous unconcern for the fate of the galaxy just feels… 

She keeps coming back to the word _wrong_ , because it’s the only one that fits. 

Rey had a picture in her mind of Luke Skywalker, an image she’d built up in her head: of someone steadfast and kind, of someone who believes in the light to be found in the darkness. Half-remembered dreams of a young man dressed all in black – _I am a Jedi like my father before me_ – and with unshakeable faith.

Luke Skywalker is none of those things: he’s faithless, old, and perhaps not even a Jedi anymore. If he is, he is the last.

Rey is determined that things will not stay that way. She follows him all over the island he has retreated to, only leaving him alone when she sleeps outside the stone hut he calls home, covered by nothing more than a thin blanket to ward off the cold. Luke may be stubborn; but the entire galaxy is riding on this. Rey isn’t about to give up.

Besides… there’s something in Luke that calls to Rey, something deep and primal and beyond words. She wants to find out exactly what it is.

She’s stomping across the island in Luke’s wake when she hears the whispering voice.

Rey stops, turns, listening to something only she can hear. Luke walks on, either not noticing or not caring that Rey has stopped: it could be either, with him. But Rey barely notices Luke continuing on his way, her attention thoroughly caught.

She follows the voice.

What she finds is a tunnel inside an ancient tree – and it is familiar, somehow. Rey is a child of the desert, a child of heat and sand and vicious sunlight, and yet something inside her says _I have been here before._ She follows the voice to the centre of the tree.

There, sitting in a tiny alcove, shining in the sunlight that has filtered through, are books. Rey reaches for them, caught in a trance of half-remembered memory.

It’s there that Luke finds her.

“Who are you?” he asks, and there is a name on the tip of Rey’s tongue, something she can’t quite remember–

“Where are you from?” Luke adds, and that question is easier to answer, doesn’t pull at things buried deep at the bottom of Rey’s mind.

“Nowhere,” she says, because she might as well be.

“No one’s from nowhere,” says Luke, his eyes still on her – and he’s frowning, yes, but Rey has finally caught his attention, in a ways she hasn’t managed in days of following him around Ach-To.

So this time, Rey tells the truth.

“Jakku.” 

“Alright, that is pretty much nowhere,” Luke concedes. “Why are you here, Rey from nowhere?”

Rey launches into the spiel she’s been repeating for days.

“The  Resistance sent me. The First Order has become unstoppable–”

But Luke interrupts.

“Why are _you_ here?” It’s clear what he’s asking. What has made Rey travel across the galaxy in search of a man she has never met, for a cause which may yet be doomed to failure?

Rey stops. Hesitates. 

When she finally speaks her words are slow, and chosen with care. Finding the right words to describe the way she feels is difficult.

“Something inside me has always been there… but now it's awake, and I'm afraid. I don't know what it is, or what to do with it, but I need help.”

“You need a teacher,” says Luke, and Rey jolts, remembering Kylo Ren saying the same thing. 

But Luke’s next words are different from Kylo Ren’s.

“I can’t teach you.”

“Why not?” Rey can’t help it: she desperately wishes to understand this man. To discover why he isn’t the man she’s half-imagined, half-dreamed of ever since she first heard his name spoken. “I’ve seen your daily routine. You are _not_ busy.”

Luke’s response is brutally blunt and to-the-point.

****

“I will never train another generation of Jedi. I came to this island to die. It's time for the Jedi... to end.”

He walks away then, out of the tree, and Rey watches him go without trying to stop him. It is a mystery why his words make her heart ache so much.

* * *

In the end, Luke promises to teach Rey three lessons. He seems to think that once he’s done that, Rey will leave him alone. But three lessons are progress, better than nothing, and so Rey agrees.

“What do you know about the Force?” is the question that Luke asks during Rey’s first lesson.

Rey’s first impulse is to say that it’s a power which allows you to control people, and to make things float. But then she pauses, and something surfaces from the depths of her mind. The words come almost of their own volition as she sits with her eyes half-closed. It feels like she’s quoting something, or someone.

“The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It is around us and inside of us; it holds the galaxy together.”

There’s a beat of silence from Luke.

“Not bad. Who told you that?”

Rey frowns, and tries to reach for memory; but it skitters away at her touch, and is lost to her.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Luke frowns at her response, but lets it pass. He teaches Rey to reach out, to feel the Force, to feel the island around her. Rey has never had a home to return to, but she thinks that what she feels as she consciously connects with the Force must be a little like what coming home feels like.

But there is a darkness on the island, a pit of something still and cold and implacable, and Rey’s mind is almost drawn into it before Luke pulls her back. He tells her that she didn’t even try to resist, and stomps off in a fury.

Later, when she thinks about it, Rey knows he’s right. But something in that darkness was tugging at her, telling her that it has something she wants.

Rey wishes she knew _what_.

Oh, and to make things even better, she’s started having visions of Kylo Ren. Rey doesn’t know what that means, but it’s nothing good, of that she’s sure.

* * *

In the end, Rey goes to look at the entrance to the pit of darkness. It’s all she means to do, _look_ : but some unseen force grabs hold of her and _yanks_ , and with a yelp she vanishes into the pit. 

Rey finds herself in a cave, looking at her own reflection. Instinct leads her to reach out, to touch. Reality shatters. When she looks around, Rey sees herself – reflection upon reflection, each a millisecond ahead or behind of her. But Rey is strangely calm, even though she ought to be panicking, or afraid.

Something tells her that this is her chance to get answers. So she moves forward, until she reaches yet another crystal wall.

“I want to know who I am,” she says. 

Later, she will think about how poorly-worded that request was. Not _I want to know who my parents are_ , which might have shown Rey a different vision entirely. No, she says _I want to know who I am_ – and the Force obliges her.

A rush of memory gushes forth like a flood, almost sweeping Rey away in its path. She barely holds onto her sense of self even as she is caught in the swirls and eddies of the memories’ rise.

As the first of the flood of memories flash before her eyes, _decades_ of a life lived shoved into her mind all at once, heedless of the trauma or damage they are doing, Rey begins to understand.

“ _No!”_ she howls, almost drowning in the flood as the memories continue to rise. “No! I take it back! _I don’t want to know!_ ”

But the memories keep integrating with her mind, one after another inexorably slotting into place, until finally Rey is left kneeling on the floor of the cave, head bowed, breathing harshly as she tries to grapple with everything she has just remembered. The names come last of all.

Anakin Skywalker. _Darth Vader._

Rey chokes on a sob, too caught in the horror of the life she’d once lived to think of anything else. She doesn’t know how long she sits there, shivering and trembling in the dark, before she comes back to the here and now.

Her first fleeting thought is to wonder how long she’s been down here and if Luke has even noticed she’s missing; and then she thinks, in pain and grief, _Luke_ –

Rey wants to weep, because to see her son as he now is – Luke, who was once shining and bright with the strength of his love and conviction – to see him so broken down and that conviction lost is more than she can bear. Rey-from-before had registered a strange sense of heartache in his presence; Rey, now, feels like her heart might actually break the next time she sees him.

She’d once thought that her legacy would be her son, and had died… not gladly, but with a sense of peace which had eluded her for most of her life. But here she is – _alive_ again – in this terrible, war-torn galaxy, and rather than her son her greatest legacy is a sullen, vicious _child_ who has idolised all the worst things about her. 

This, Rey thinks, is a hell beyond all she had ever imagined. She feels powerless to change what she has set in motion.

But somehow, she must. The fate of the galaxy depends on it.

Rey doesn’t know how much time has passed before she finally climbs out of the cave of darkness and back up to the shoreline. She is shivering, her skin cold and clammy from her dip in the water, her clothing wet and clinging to her.

She makes her way back to the Millennium Falcon, to where she has a spare set of clothes. Chewbacca takes one look at her pale face and wet clothes and asks what happened.

Rey lets out a shaky laugh.

“ _Everything_ ,” she says, and then shakes her head, because she can’t possibly explain. “I fell into a cave full of water, Chewie, it’s nothing. I’m going to get changed and get warm.”

That night she tries to sleep in her bunk aboard ship, instead of outside Luke’s hut, but sleep eludes her.

She needs to talk to Luke.

The next morning she finds him milking the sea-cows, and Rey takes one look at him, weary and worn down to the bone and so very _bitter_ , and bursts into tears.

She hears Luke sigh in irritation.

“ _I’m so_ _sorry_ ,” says Rey, stumbling over the words. They emerge more as spoken sobs than anything else.

“What did you do?” Luke is understandably wary and also, unmistakably, tired of all this. 

“I went to the cave of darkness,” said Rey, and is _certain_ she feels Luke roll his eyes in a way that reminds her, jarringly, of Obi-Wan Kenobi. She can’t actually tell for sure though, as her eyes have blurred with tears.

“What did you see?” asks Luke.

“I saw myself,” says Rey. “I saw… terrible things, from before I was born. Things I’d done.”

“What do you mean you saw things from before you were born that you’d done?” 

Rey does her best to blink away the tears and reign herself in. Controlling her emotions has never been her strong point – this her or the previous her – but she’s sure she used to have more control than this. Before she became _Rey_.

Or maybe, she thinks, she was just that deep in denial.

Luke is still looking wary, but Rey can’t tell what else he might be feeling, because he’s still closed off to the Force.

“Luke,” says Rey. “Open yourself to the Force. Open yourself to the Force and _look at me_.”

Luke hesitates. Unsurprising; given how long he must have been closed off from the Force, the thought of reconnecting with it must be an intimidating one. But however angry Luke has been with Rey and her presence here, he’s also been intrigued. 

Rey hopes that will be enough.

It must be, because suddenly Rey feels Luke’s presence in the Force – wary, confused, impatient – and she can’t help but bask in it even as she yearns to soothe away the wounds he carries. She reaches out.

Luke reaches out too, feeling out her presence in the Force, and she sees the moment he recognises her familiar spark.

“ _No.”_

Luke’s eyes are wide and incredulous, every emotional wall torn down: Rey both hears and _feels_ his shocked, knee-jerk denial.

A lone tear rolls down her face as Rey’s mind flashes back to the events on Bespin, Luke’s agonised cry echoing in her ears. He had said _no_ then, too.

But Luke is not the callow, untrained youth he was then. He gets himself under control almost immediately and goes still, his eyes searching hers. There is a long, fraught silence.

Then:

“Father?” Luke whispers, his voice barely audible.

Rey takes a breath.

“Yes. And no. I’m Rey, I’m not Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker. But… I _used_ to be.”

A beat of silence from Luke, and then, 

“Why are you here? _How_ are you here?”

Rey shakes her head.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. It’s all… blurred.”

“Not to be known by the living, some things are,” says a new voice, and both Rey and Luke look around to see a Force Ghost standing beside them.

Rey’s first reaction is exasperation.

“Yoda. I suppose you know more about this situation than I do.”

Yoda chuckles.

“Know much that you do not, I always do.”

“Thank you Yoda, that was extraordinarily unhelpful,” says Rey.

Yoda responds by hitting her on the forehead with his walking stick. Rey yelps and tries to kick him in the shins, but her foot goes straight through him as though he isn’t there.

“Oh, that’s just not fair.”

But there is the slightest of smiles tugging at Luke’s mouth, his presence in the Force temporarily brightened by amusement, and so Rey lets Yoda’s hitting-her-with-his-stick thing pass.

“Come on, Yoda. Tell me why I’m here. And while I’m at it, why are Kylo Ren and I experiencing joint Force visions of each other?”

“ _What?”_ Luke asks, sharp and startled, but Rey looks to Yoda.

For once, the famously-cryptic Jedi Master answers the question.

“Connected, you are. Your legacy, Kylo Ren is,” says Yoda. 

He ignores Rey’s irritated, “Yes, I’m aware of that,” and continues to speak.

“Kylo Ren – a problem of your own creation, which you alone may solve.” Yoda’s face is grave now, all traces of his earlier amusement gone.

“So we’re getting connected Force visions until I work out how to deal with him?” asks Rey. “Fantastic.”

But Yoda is turning to Luke, who ducks the walking stick just in time.

“So. Decided to end the Jedi Order, have you?”

Luke looks defensive.

“I have. It is time for it all to end. I failed them all, Ben most of all. I don’t deserve the title of Jedi Master.”

Yoda sighs.

“Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength. Mastery. But weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”

Rey listens with a frown. She doesn’t know what passed between Kylo Ren – Ben Solo – and Luke, but she suspects that it is at the heart of the crisis now sweeping the galaxy. _Something_ happened that was a catalyst for the creation of Kylo Ren, and it is apparent to her that she needs to know what it was. Equally apparent is the fact that whatever it is, it is eating Luke away from the inside. 

Talking about it is probably going to hurt him – but if there is one thing which Rey has learned, it is that bottling up your emotions only makes them fester. Opening those emotional wounds, on the other hand, sometimes allows them to drain away.

“Destroy those books in the cave, you should,” says Yoda, and Luke stares in undisguised shock. “Destroy them, and begin anew. Time it is for you to look past a pile of old books, hmm?”

Rey has a fleeting memory of being in a time and place which is neither a time nor a place, arguing philosophy and theological doctrine with a passion entirely unbecoming of a traditional Jedi. The memory is gone almost immediately – the living are not meant to remember that which follows death – but the words _eliminate emotion and you have eliminated compassion, justice, and empathy_ echo faintly in her mind. 

“But the sacred Jedi texts–” Luke begins to argue.

“Forget the sacred Jedi texts,” says Rey more heatedly than she means to. “ ‘ _ There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. _ _There is no passion, there is serenity._ _There is no chaos, there is harmony._ _There is no death, there is the Force.’_ ”

Rey looks to Luke to make sure he is paying attention. 

“That was the old Jedi Code, Luke. The basic principles of the Jedi Order. But without emotion, there is no empathy. With no passion, there is no compassion. Without chaos, there is stagnation. Without death, there are no new beginnings. Even anger can be useful, if it’s the right sort of anger. Anger can drive much-needed change. In the right circumstances, it can create hope. It can spur you on, and stop you from falling into apathy and despair. It’s only when anger turns inward and festers that it’s dangerous.” 

Rey hesitates on her next words, but she knows to her soul that they are true – and that she needs to say them.

“I think that if I had been allowed to be angry when I was Anakin, things might have turned out differently. Because the only person who ever made me feel that I was allowed to be angry was Palpatine. If I’d been allowed to express that emotion in a healthy way – honestly, if I’d been allowed to express _any_ emotion in a healthy way – then perhaps the Dark Side wouldn’t have been such an effective trap.”

“Agree on this we do not,” says Yoda, looking severe.

But Luke is staring at her with a frown.

“Are you saying that _you_ think the Jedi Order should end?”

Rey lets out an inelegant snort.

“Of course not. You need something like the Jedi Order to fight people like Snoke and Kylo Ren, because there will _always_ be people like Snoke and Kylo Ren. But you’re the last Jedi left, Luke. Why does the new Jedi Order have to look like the old one? If you want my advice you should burn it all down and start over.”

Luke looks thoughtful. Yoda harrumphs.

“Yours, the decision is,” he says. “But be wary of accepting advice from one such as Rey, I would be.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Rey, and throws a rock at Yoda’s head. It sails right through him. “I’m the one who brought balance to the Force, remember?”

Yoda looks at Luke as though to say, _see what I mean?_

When they both ignore him, he slowly disappears from sight. Rey is glad to see him go.

Anakin Skywalker had respected Yoda right up until the end, but Rey – well, she has a different perspective. Yoda might not have been the reason she fell, not directly, but he never did a damn thing to help her, either. Not even when she’d come to him for exactly that.

Rey isn’t sure she can forgive him for it. The galaxy burned because Anakin Skywalker needed a support structure, one which Yoda had helped deny him. It wasn’t done out of malice, but it was done all the same.

“Anyway,” says Rey, bringing her thoughts back to the here and now. The past, however painful, is past. “Kylo Ren is my responsibility, Luke. If you don’t want to deal with him, I will. But I think you should reconsider abandoning the Jedi Order. The galaxy needs it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Luke doesn’t sound hostile, or defensive. Just unutterably weary.

Rey gives into impulse and hugs him. The moment is awkward. Rey lets go.

“This is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?” 

“That’s one way of putting it,” says Luke.

Rey looks at him.

“Luke, what happened with Kylo Ren? Ben Solo, I mean. What happened to make him turn?” Rey can sense a deep well of shame and despair within her son. She wonders how long it’s been there. She gentles her voice. “Luke, I need to know. I’m sorry.”

Luke is silent for a long, long time.

“I know,” he says at last.

And slowly, haltingly, he tells her.

* * *

Rey has everything she needs. Information, her lightsaber, a ship. But not everything she wants.

Thing Rey wants, number one: to spend more time with her son. But she’s needed elsewhere and she knows it, and it doesn’t seem that she can prevail on Luke to leave this isolated planet.

“I won’t be returning with you – tell Leia–” Luke says, and stops, because at the word _Leia_ Rey is overcome by a rush of memory that has her throwing up in the grass.

“Rey?” Luke sounds alarmed, and concerned.

“I tortured her for information,” says Rey, when she can speak. “About the Rebel base. Your sister. My _daughter_.”

Luke makes a face like this is old history he hardly ever thinks of, but to Rey, the throb of painful horror is raw and unforgiving.

“It was a long time ago,” Luke finally says. 

Rey doesn’t look at him. 

“Rey.” Luke’s voice is firm. “You have other things to worry about.”

As though that’s some kind of cue, Kylo Ren suddenly appears in Rey’s field of vision. He’s on board an Imperial ship, if the stark white black-and-white décor is any indication.

The moment he lays eyes on Rey, he frowns.

“You’ve changed.”

“It happens to everyone,” says Rey, her tone flippant. Kylo Ren frowns even more.

“No,” he says, as though Rey has misunderstood him. “You – your conviction. Your view of your place in the world. It’s _changed_.”

Rey grins at him, fierce and full of teeth.

“I found myself,” she says. “And also Luke, by the way.”

Kylo Ren’s face contorts a little at the sound of his uncle’s name, and honestly, after hearing what transpired between the two of them, Rey isn’t sure she can blame him. For other things, yes, but not that.

“I suppose you think you have the upper hand?” His voice is low and mocking, but Rey can sense the uncertainty he’s always trying so hard to bury.

She feels a flicker of pity for her grandson.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know,” she says, her voice slightly softer than before. “You can still turn back. Darth Vader did.”

That sparks something in Kylo Ren.

“Darth Vader was strong,” he says. “Powerful. I refuse to be weak.”

The laughter is out of Rey before she can stop it.

“Vader? Powerful? He was on a _leash_ , and you know it. The Emperor’s favourite attack dog, and nothing more.”

“How dare you!” Kylo Ren’s face is full of fury. “Darth Vader was great–”

“He was a _slave!_ ” Rey howls, her nails digging into her palms, her fury palpable. It’s old, bitter fury, aimed more at herself and the Emperor than at Kylo Ren. But it makes an effective weapon, all the same. “He was born a slave and he lived a slave, and the only time in his life that he could be called _free_ was when he threw his master down a reactor shaft!”

Kylo Ren is about to answer angrily, when something gives him pause. His expression goes from angry to thoughtful. 

“This is personal, for you. Why should you care that Darth Vader was a slave, as you put it?”

Rey closes her eyes. Breathes. Opens them again.

“I told you. I found myself. Everything I’d forgotten. And it pains me to see you following in my footsteps, grandson.”

Kylo Ren’s face is blank for a moment. Then he smiles, although the expression is clearly forced.

“You expect me to believe that you are Darth Vader, what, reborn?”

Rey smiles. It’s a smile which should make even Kylo Ren worry.

“No. I was Anakin Skywalker, at the end. Or didn’t you ever listen to that part of the story?”

“You are not Anakin Skywalker!”

“Oh, but I am,” says Rey. “And it will be your downfall.”

Suddenly, Rey is alone. The only one nearby is Luke, who is staring at Rey with a perturbed expression.

But his next question is not about Kylo Ren.

“You were born a slave?” he asks quietly.

Rey almost flinches at the memories she herself has evoked, of a childhood spent on Tatooine, until a strange offworlder came looking for parts to a Nubian royal starship.

Instead, she nods.

“Anakin was. The Jedi bought me when I was nine years old, and brought me into the Order. Yoda was against it. He thought I was too old.”

“At _nine?_ ” Luke shakes his head. “No wonder he was so against training me.” His gaze is troubled. “Did the Jedi give you a choice?”

Rey shrugs.

“Not really. I never found out what would have become of me if I hadn’t become a Jedi. Nothing good, probably. The Jedi Order was… not the most compassionate place. Besides, I wanted to be a Jedi. Back then, I thought that being a Jedi was about helping people.” Rey’s voice is bitter. “I wanted to free all the slaves. The rest of the Order kept telling me that the _stability_ of the Republic was more important.”

Rey sees an echo of her own indignant anger flare to life in Luke’s eyes.

“Yoda never told me any of this.” Luke looks suddenly wry, the anger ebbing. “But then, he and Obi-Wan never did tell me much.”

“Sounds like them.”

Silence falls. Finally Luke asks, “Are you going to kill him?” They both know who he means.

“I don’t know,” says Rey – because whatever else she’s done she has never lied to her son, and doesn’t intend to start now. “I hope not. Leia’s been through enough without that. But Kylo Ren – Ben – killed his father willingly, Luke. There might not be enough of him left to save.”

“But you’re going to try.” In Luke’s face, Rey sees a spark of the young Luke she remembers, the one who was convinced that she could be saved. The one who, in the end, had been _right_.

“I have to.” Rey gives a shrug. “If I don’t, who will?”

To Rey’s surprise, this time it’s Luke who initiates the hug. She hugs him back, fiercely, before she steps back.

“Tell Leia I’m sorry,” says Luke.

“I will.”

Rey turns back towards the grassy knoll where the Millennium Falcon is parked, and begins to walk in that direction.

“What are you going to tell her?” Luke calls out, as Rey heads towards the ship.

“I have no idea!” Rey calls over her shoulder. 

She can feel Luke’s gaze on her back all the way to the Millennium Falcon.

“Where’s Luke?” Chewbacca asks, when Rey tells him they’re leaving.

“He’s not coming,” says Rey. “But this isn’t his fight. It’s mine. I know that now.”

Chewbacca isn’t convinced. He rumbles about how it’s about time Luke was there to support his sister.

“I know,” says Rey; she might not have met Leia for all that long, in this life, but even she had been able to sense how much Leia grieved her brother’s absence. “But it has to be his decision, Chewie. Give him time.”

“He’s had _years_.”

“I know,” says Rey again. “But we’re going to have to do this without him. Trust me. I have a plan.”

“So what’s the plan?” Chewbacca asks, after a moment. 

Rey’s mood turns grim.

“At the heart of this mess is Kylo Ren, and Snoke. I need to go to them.”

Chewbacca objects, of course. He points out that Rey’s only had a few days training – if it can be called training, which he doubts – and Kylo Ren has had years to hone his skills. Then there’s Snoke, who’s on a whole other level.

“I know, but –”

Rey cuts herself off, because Kylo Ren is there. Again.

“Oh, what _now_ ,” she complains.

Chewbacca asks her what’s wrong; clearly, he cannot see the apparition as Rey can. Force-sensitives like her and Luke only, then.

“Do you think that you can hide from me?” asks Kylo Ren. “I will find you, and when I do, you will face the Supreme Leader.”

“Who says I’m trying to hide?” Rey raises her eyebrows, meets his gaze unflinchingly. “You want a meeting? Name a location, and I’ll be there.”

Chewbacca asks what’s going on, who Rey is talking to. Rey ignores him in favour of giving Kylo Ren a challenging stare.

“Fine,” says Kylo Ren. He gives her a set of coordinates. 

“I’ll be there,” Rey promises.

“You are brave – or foolish. Not that it matters.”

Rey eyes him for a moment.

“You know, Luke told me what he did,” she says abruptly. “Of how he almost tried to kill you.”

Kylo Ren snarls slightly.

“There was no _almost_. He did try to kill me. My own uncle – the great Luke Skywalker. Attempting nepoticide. Does it make you see him in a different light?”

Rey shrugs.

“Not really.” No matter Luke’s life choices, he will always be her son. And while the thought of murdering Ben Solo might have been in his mind, Luke had _turned back_ from that course of action. In the end, he had resisted the temptation of the dark. “But it does explain your anger – although there are healthier ways of dealing with anger than emulating the Sith, you know. I know that better than most.”

“Ah, yes, because you’re my _grandfather_.” Kylo Ren’s voice is sarcastic. “A girl from a dustball junkyard planet.”

“The same could be said of Tatooine,” Rey points out. “And are you implying that there’s something lesser about being a girl? I wouldn’t have thought the son of Leia Organa would make such a mistake.”

Kylo Ren looks at Rey. His expression is almost calm.

“The son of Leia Organa is dead. There is no point in attempting to reach him. It won’t work.”

“I’m afraid you might be right,” Rey admits. Kylo Ren is still, watchful, trying to figure out why she is willing to admit it. “It means I’ll have to kill you. But I’d really prefer not to.”

“Do you think you could?” Kylo Ren’s lip curls in disdain.

Rey looks him straight in the eye.

“I was trained by some of the greatest Jedi in the Order. Luke experienced their tutelage for a few days. I underwent training for _years_. Don’t you think that there might be a few things that I know that Luke could never teach you?”

“Enough of this… delusion,” says Kylo Ren, but Rey can sense his sudden doubt. “You are not my–”

But the vision ends there, and abruptly it is Rey and Chewbacca standing alone outside the ship.

Rey puts a hand over her eyes and swears. She stalks up the boarding ramp without another word.

Chewbacca follows.

“You’re going to go to that–” The word Chewbacca uses for Kylo Ren is both expressive of Chewbacca’s opinion of him, and unrepeatable in polite company. Or at least it would be, if more people spoke Wookiee.

“I am,” Rey agrees, already putting the Millennium Falcon through her takeoff sequence and inputting the coordinates Kylo Ren gave her. “The moment we appear at these coordinates you’ll need to jettison one of the escape pods with me in it, and then get the hell away from there.”

“And leave you alone?”

Rey looks up from the controls to meet Chewbacca’s eyes, feeling a swell of fondness for him at his evident concern.

“I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Chewbacca grumbles, but tells her that she should probably get to the escape pod, and not to forget her lightsaber, whatever good it will do her.

Rey grins.

“Thanks, Chewie,” she says, and follows his advice.

As she presses the button which seals the escape pod door with her in it, Rey closes her eyes and leans into the Force.

She really hopes this works.

* * *

The moment the door to the escape pod opens, a stormtrooper hauls Rey out of its confines and puts a set of binders around her wrists, taking her lightsaber from her. Rey looks up, searching, and finds the presence she is looking for.

Kylo Ren says nothing as he and the stormtrooper escort Rey into the depths of the ship, but the sidelong glances he keeps sending her tell her everything she needs to know.

Kylo Ren enters Snoke’s throne room first. A moment later the stormtrooper pushes Rey forward into the throne room after him. Rey sees Snoke holding her lightsaber, but he places it aside and turns to look at Rey.

Snoke is smiling, pleased at his apprentice’s accomplishments in capturing Rey… right up until he lays eyes on Rey and realises exactly who she is. Or rather, _was_.

“ _You!_ ” he shouts, raising one gaunt hand to point an accusing finger at Rey – forgetting, for a moment, Kylo Ren’s watchful presence.

“Me,” Rey agrees. She isn’t sure how Snoke knows her – his face is certainly not a familiar one.But that’s not about to stop her from doing what she must.

“You’re _dead!”_

Rey smiles a little.

“The Force is a miraculous thing,” is all she says. She turns her head to look at Kylo Ren – and while his expression is guarded, his presence in the Force is suddenly intense.

Kylo Ren’s quiet voice cuts through the silence.

“Who is she?”

Too late, Snoke remembers what Darth Vader is to Kylo Ren. What he has _made_ Darth Vader to him, believing Darth Vader to be a powerless idol – a tool to keep Kylo Ren loyal and compliant to Snoke’s own wishes. But now, with Rey’s presence here, that idolization of Darth Vader could be a dangerous thing – like a snake turning to bite the hands that hold it.

Snoke recovers his composure, pretends that he is calm and unshaken. But a pretence is all it is, Rey knows. Whoever Snoke is, wherever he came from – he fears the potential Rey holds.

“No one. She is nothing.” Snoke waves a dismissive hand. “The last of the Jedi Order… which will die with her.”

Kylo Ren says nothing, but however impulsive and lacking in emotional discipline he might be, he isn’t stupid. He’s capable of putting together Rey’s story with the reaction Snoke had to her.

But Snoke’s eyes are still on Rey, and he misses the hope, the disbelief, the _calculation_ which flash through his apprentice’s eyes. A moment later Kylo Ren’s eyes shutter, no longer windows to his emotions, but Rey has already seen what is there.

“Kill her,” Snoke orders.

Rey crouches, tenses, and springs. Her Force-propelled leap sends her across the room in a single bound, in the same moment as the nearest lightsaber flies into her hand. It’s Kylo Ren’s.

A second later, the Praetorian Guard are upon her in all their scarlet-armoured glory.

Rey ducks and weaves and parries and thrusts her borrowed lightsaber forward, dodging or countering every move the members of the Praetorian Guard make. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Kylo Ren move to stand beside Snoke. His eyes are on her.

“Kill her, Kylo Ren!” Snoke calls out. “Prove to me that you are my worthy apprentice!”

Kylo Ren turns his head to look at Snoke. The look in his eyes is thoughtful – and dangerous.

“Why should you be the one who decides that I am worthy?” he asks softly, amid the sounds of Rey battling the Praetorian Guard.

Snoke stares at him, for the first time bothering to see what lies in his apprentice’s mind. He doesn’t have time to react before Rey’s lightsaber activates at Kylo Ren’s mental command – skewering Snoke where he sits.

The Praetorian Guard turn their heads as one towards the sound, and Rey uses the moment to kill the nearest one of them. Then the Praetorian Guard splits smoothly into two groups, one remaining with Rey, the other going after Kylo Ren.

It’s only a matter of minutes before Rey slaughters the last of her opponents; she looks up just in time to see Kylo Ren doing the same. The two of them stare at each other. Silence falls.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Kylo Ren says finally. “About Darth Vader being a slave.” He hesitates. “Are you really him?”

Rey deactivates her borrowed lightsaber. Kylo Ren – or perhaps Ben Solo; it’s difficult to tell at this point, but Rey hopes anyway – does the same.

“I was, once,” says Rey, and then, “ _Ben_.”

He looks at her.

“We could rule the galaxy, you and I,” he says. “Together.”

His stare is intense, filled with emotion he dares not otherwise express. He _wants_ her approval, her pride – her conviction that he is _worthy_. Wants it desperately, and he is willing to offer her the galaxy in return. Rey has a moment where she is more Anakin Skywalker than Rey, where she thinks of all she could _do_ if she ruled the galaxy – all the good, wonderful things.

The terrible things.

The moment passes, and Rey shakes her head, dislodging memories of what Anakin Skywalker had sacrificed, in the end, for futile dreams of power.

“I’ve tried taking power, for power’s sake. No good comes of it. Padme believed in the power of democracy, and for all its flaws, it’s still the least flawed system we have.”

Rey expects Kylo Ren to point out that democracy is easily overthrown, but he takes her by surprise.

“Padme?”

Rey blinks at him, thrown by the fact that he doesn’t recognise the name. She has a moment of sudden vertigo where she wonders if either of her children even _know_ their mother’s name.

“Your grandmother. My wife. My angel,” says Rey – and it’s the first time she’s really thought of Padme since her memories were returned by the Force, and she’s struck by how much she misses her. 

Kylo Ren stares at Rey. When he speaks, he sounds as though he’s experienced a revelation.

“You loved her.”

“Beyond all reason,” Rey says, and she knows her expression is bittersweet. “I’d have done anything for her. Anything not to lose her. It’s how Darth Sidious trapped me into joining him.”

“No one ever told me that story,” says Kylo Ren.

“I doubt there’s anyone alive who still knows,” says Rey. “Well, besides me, obviously. I’m not even sure Luke and your mother know who their mother was. We never spoke of her.” She lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “We had other things to discuss, at the time.”

“Who was she?” Kylo Ren asks.

“Padme Amidala, former Queen and Senator of Naboo,” says Rey, and reluctantly pulls her mind away from old, beautifully-painful memories. “My greatest regret is that I betrayed her.”

“I tell myself I don’t have any regrets. And yet the past continues to haunt me.”

Rey looks at Kylo Ren.

“I’m not a Sith, you know. Not anymore.”

“Are you a Jedi, then?” A hint of mockery creeps into Kylo Ren’s tone at the word _Jedi._

Rey thinks about it.

“I suppose I am. But the Jedi Order doesn’t have to mean what everyone thinks it means. I don’t believe that attachment, that sentiment, is a flaw. I was always at my strongest when I had the support of my family.”

“I never had that,” says Kylo Ren.

“Would you like to?” 

There is a long moment of silence.

“If you won’t rule the galaxy,” Kylo Ren says abruptly, “what will you do with it?”

“Reinstitute democracy, weren’t you listening?” Rey’s voice is half-teasing, half-serious. She sees Kylo Ren blink. “From there… protect it. Even from the people who are supposed to implement it, but frequently don’t.”

“You’re different from how I expected you to be,” says Kylo Ren, slowly and thoughtfully. It’s not quite a criticism.

Rey grins at him.

“That’s me, defying expectations,” she says. “So. Will you help me?”

“I could rule the galaxy,” Kylo Ren protests, but Rey can see his mind ticking over behind his eyes.

“A galaxy of people who will hate and fear you for it,” Rey agrees. “Or you could come with me, and I can teach you what I know.” 

She waits.

After a moment, Kylo Ren looks at the lightsaber in his hand. He holds it out.

“This is yours.”

Rey holds out Kylo Ren’s own lightsaber, and they swap. Kylo Ren tucks his lightsaber away, and looks at her.

“Come on, Ben,” says Rey. “Aren’t you tired of being alone?”

He hesitates.

“All the darkness, the power – what has it brought you so far? Contentment? Happiness? Or just a different kind of sorrow?” 

The silence stretches out. Rey holds out a hand, waiting.

Finally, Kylo Ren takes her outstretched hand, his gloved fingers curling around her smaller ones. Together, they leave the throne room.

* * *

It takes time to dismantle the Empire of the First Order. It’s relatively easy to seize control – General Hux objects, of course, turning purple with rage at the thought of putting _the people_ back in charge, but once they deal with him, almost everyone else falls into line.

Ben Solo is officially named the new head of state. As soon as he is, he and Rey begin the paperwork to dissolve the First Order and return to a state of republic.

Rey wasn’t around to help draft the constitution of the last republic. This time, she’s making sure that all the things that the Senate turned a blind eye to are directly addressed. Slavery especially.

Ben seems to be taken-aback by the enthusiasm with which Rey works on the preliminary drafts for the new constitution.

“I thought Darth Vader was more a man of action than a bureaucrat,” he says, as Rey briskly taps out line after line of powers and provisions.

“Do you really think he helped to run an entire Empire without paperwork?” Rey demands. “I mean, I shoved it onto other people when I could, but I became adept at this sort of thing, I assure you.”

Sometimes Darth Vader is _him,_ sometimes Darth Vader is _I;_ they both know what she means.

“I’ve just sent out the message to the Resistance, asking them to meet to negotiate the new constitution for the new republic,” Ben says.

“The _new_ , new republic,” says Rey idly. She frowns and erases a line of text, beginning a new one. “Hopefully this republic will last longer than the old one.”

Ben watches her for a moment. But Rey keeps working on her draft, and after a moment, he leaves her to it.

Rey is late for the first meeting between the First Order and the delegation from the Resistance. It takes her nearly an hour to decide what to wear. Before her memories of her first life returned, Rey didn’t care much for clothing: only that it was clean and serviceable. But now she has decades of memories of politics – and the personal memories of Padme Amidala’s own carefully calculated clothing choices. Rey wants to send a strong message with her choice of attire: the question is what that message _is._

Eventually, she decides on an outfit with a practical cut, not that dissimilar from the clothing which the Republic-era Jedi wore. However, it is white in colour rather than beige or fawn or brown, and has black accents. It’s also made of more expensive material than Rey would usually wear – but that sends a message, too.

Ten minutes into the meeting, Rey walks into the conference room – into an atmosphere tense enough to cut – wearing her chosen clothing and holding an armful of datapads. Behind her, aides enter the room, also laden down with datapads. They begin distributing them amongst the occupants of the conference room.

There is a murmur from the Resistance delegation. Ben and the First Order people are already reading though the content of the datapads they have been given.

“What is this?” one Resistance diplomat demands, obviously defensive and suspicious. Rey does not think much of their diplomacy skills.

“Drafts for the new constitution, of course,” says Rey, and smiles at Leia. “It’s good to see you again, Leia.”

__

_ “What?” _

__

_ “New constitution?”  _

“Thank you, Rey,” says Leia, her manners as gracious as ever, her countenance serene. “I look forward to reading the drafts you have prepared. How was Luke?”

Rey’s breath catches in her throat.

“…not too bad, I suppose,” she says, when she can speak again. “Considering.”

“This is some First Order trick!” one of the delegates exclaims. “You cannot be serious about this!”

“I am very serious about this,” says Ben, his face perfectly grave. But Rey can tell he’s enjoying how flustered the Resistance delegation are. 

It’s Leia who looks at him, searching his face.

“You truly mean to restore the New Republic?” she asks, and doesn’t bother to disguise her hope.

Ben meets her eyes.

“I do,” he says.

Leia closes her eyes.

“However, since the previous New Republic was based on the original galactic Republic, it has inherited a lot of its flaws,” says Rey, and the moment between Ben and Leia passes. “Flaws we hope to correct.”

“What flaws? Freedom and justice?” mutters one delegate.

“I was thinking more the constitutional oversight which allowed the Republic Senate to turn a blind eye to the blatant presence of slavery in the Outer Rim,” Rey says coolly, staring the delegate down. “Oversight which was carried through to the previous New Republic, by the way.”

The delegate flushes bright blue to the tips of their pointed ears.

“I see that you’ve dealt with that oversight,” Leia notes, peering at her datapad with interest.

From there, it all goes brilliantly. Well, as these things go. It will likely take months before the paperwork is signed and ratified, but for a first meeting, Rey feels that they have made progress.

At the next meeting, there is a familiar face. He speaks up the moment Rey enters the room.

“Rey!” Finn calls out, delight and relief written all over his face.

“ _Finn!”_ Rey is similarly delighted and relieved. She’s had a lot to be going on with these last few weeks, but she is so very, very glad to see her friend alive and well, and apparently recovered from his injuries. Why he’s here she doesn’t know, but she’s thrilled that he is.

Ben quirks an eyebrow from where he sits at the head of the conference table. Rey ignores him with the ease of weeks of practice.

“I thought you might like to see him,” says Leia in explanation, and there is softness and understanding in her eyes. Rey beams at her, before turning the beam back on Finn.

One of the First Order people clears his throat. Rey scowls at him until his expression becomes strained and uncomfortable.

Ben has a serious face on, but Rey can sense his amusement at her glaring his subordinates into submission.

Rey looks back at Finn.

“After the meeting,” she says. “We should talk.”

The meeting is long and irritating, but overall, it’s productive. Rey talks about many different topics, with varying degrees of passion or indignation. It’s not hard to summon up the indignation, every time someone from the First Order or the Resistance suggests that this group of people or another should be disadvantaged or overlooked.

It’s usually implied rather than outright stated, but Rey has memories of decades of practice at interpreting diplomatic-speak, now, and every time someone tries to slip something past her she takes vicious pleasure in pointing out what they’re _really_ saying, and calling them out on it.

Finn is silent, but he watches her with what looks like amazement. Every now and again he glares at Ben, who appears oblivious to Finn’s looks of hatred.

But the bond between Rey and Ben is still in place, and Rey hears his voice drift across her mind.

_ Your paramour seems to hate me. _

_ Shut up, he’s my friend _ , Rey retorts. _And you’ve given him good reason to hate you. You’re a symbol of everything the First Order has done to him_. A second later, she regrets her outburst.

But Ben is thoughtful.

_ Then perhaps I should give him reason to think otherwise. _

Rey glances at Ben sharply. He meets her eyes with a bland expression. Rey doesn’t roll her eyes, but only because then a dozen people would be trying to figure out _why_.

At the end of the meeting, as both parties are packing up their things, Ben clears his throat.

“Finn,” he says.

Finn looks around as though he expects Ben to be talking to someone else. Then he looks back at Ben.

“Are you talking to me?” Finn demands, his voice hard.

“Rey has told me a great deal about you,” says Ben, ignoring the question. Finn blinks, losing some of his hostility in surprise.

“What?”

“I’m on her side, and she is on mine,” Ben says. “I thought, given the loyalty you have shown her so far, that you should know that.” He pauses. “From what she says, you have been a good friend to her.”

Finn makes an indescribable face, torn between pleasure at the praise, and affront that it comes from _Kylo Ren_ , of all people.

“Look,” Finn finally says, glaring. “I don’t know what made Rey join you–”

“ _He_ joined _me_ ,” says Rey, and watches as the rest of the room considers the implications of her words, some of them going suddenly still and regarding her with new interest.

“–but I trust her judgement,” Finn continues, surprising Rey. “So obviously there must be something in you worth saving. _But_.” And Finn jabs a finger in Ben’s direction. “You ever betray her, and I’ll be the first to come after you.”

Ben blinks, just as surprised as Rey. Rey can tell that Finn’s comment about Rey finding ‘something worth saving’ in him has struck an emotional chord, even though it isn’t obvious to anyone else.

Well, anyone else except Leia, who is watching them intently.

“Understood,” Ben says at last. “Rey is lucky to have your friendship.”

“Damn right,” says Finn, still glaring. He looks to Rey, and his face softens. “Hey. You, uh, you want to talk?”

“Come on,” Rey tells him. “Let’s go talk.”

“We’ll wait for you, Finn,” Leia tells him. Finn nods in acknowledgement, and follows Rey.

The room Rey has claimed as her personal office isn’t far from the conference room. Finn looks around as he follows Rey inside. She shuts the door, granting them privacy.

The first thing she does is hug her friend. She and Finn stand there for a moment, relishing the contact, before they finally break apart.

“I’m glad to see you’re okay,” Rey tells him. “I’m sorry I had to leave you. But the First Order was breathing down our necks, and I had to find Luke.”

“Luke Skywalker,” says Finn, nodding. “The General told me. Did you really get to meet him?”

Rey’s mouth twists.

“I did. He was… weary. Cynical.”

“Oh,” says Finn. “So… not heroic?”

Rey looks down.

“He saved me when I needed him to,” she murmurs, and glances back up at Finn, who is looking confused. “Finn, there’s no easy way to say this. I have done awful, terrible things.”

“What are you talking about?” Finn looks even more confused than before.

“This isn’t the first life I’ve lived,” says Rey, deciding to be frank with him. He deserves to know. “In my past life… I was Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader,” she adds, to make sure he understands the depths of what she has done.

“Wait, what?” Finn does a double-take. “You mean, Lord–” and he does a credible impression of the sound of Darth Vader’s breathing apparatus. “ _Him?”_

Rey nods. 

Finn frowns.

“ _How?_ How can you be _Darth Vader?_ ” 

“Well, I’m not anymore,” says Rey. “Obviously. I died, and then I was… reborn. As Rey no-last-name.”

Finn stares at her as though deeply perplexed.

“But… _how?_ ” he says again. “You’re… you’re nothing like him.”

“I know it seems unbelievable, but it’s true.” Rey decides to give him more information, to help him understand. “The Dark Side of the Force, it’s… intoxicating. Disorienting. All-encompassing. It pulls you in with promises of power and greatness, but that’s the trap, because in gaining the powers of the Dark Side you lose your ability to feel contentment, or true happiness, or… or so many other things. The Dark Side feeds on anger and hatred, and once you fall into it, it’s like a gravity well – it’s incredible hard to get out of without the power of the Light Side to propel you out of it.”

Finn is listening with a frown. Rey has no idea what he’s thinking. She has some idea of what he’s _feeling_ , yes, but that isn’t as useful as it sounds, not when someone is feeling this conflicted.

“So what propelled you out of it?” Finn asks.

“Love,” says Rey immediately. “Love for my son. The most powerful Light Side emotion there is.”

Finn looks at Rey for a long moment.

“Darth Vader,” he finally says. “The First Order admired him, which means he probably did a lot of terrible things they never told us about in the educational holos. Everyone knew Kylo Ren idolised him though, which means the same thing.”

Rey nods, her heart in her throat.

“But you’re a good person,” says Finn, and Rey swallows. “I know it. You saved BB-8 when you didn’t have to, and… Rey, you look at me like I’m a person instead of a tool, or a weapon. You always have. You were the first.”

Finn puts his hands on Rey’s shoulders and gazes into her eyes. Rey has no choice but to gaze back.

“So whatever you did in a past life, as far as I’m concerned, that’s – ancient history. You made the choice to turn away from that life, and that’s what matters.”

“So did Ben,” Rey points out, because if what Finn says applies to her, then it applies to him too.

“Who?” 

“Ben,” says Rey. “Kylo Ren.”

Finn makes a face.

“Okay, _him_ I’m not forgiving,” he says, and Rey’s breathing hitches as the thought of being _forgiven_ for what she’s done. “But I’ll put up with him, if I have to. What’s the deal between you two, anyway?”

“He’s my grandson.” Rey shrugs helplessly. “I didn’t want to see him head down the same path I did. Besides – the Force gave us a psychic bond.”

“A what?”

“We get visions of each other, and sometimes hear each other’s thoughts,” Rey explains.

Finn makes a revolted face.

“That sounds creepy and invasive.”

“It very much is,” Rey agrees, but she smiles at Finn, glad beyond words that her friend is still her friend.

* * *

Ben doesn’t ask to speak to his mother outside of the negotiations on the new constitution, and Leia doesn’t ask to speak to him alone, either. But both see their new relationship as an improvement, nonetheless; Rey can tell. Leia expected to either bury a son, or be killed by him. Ben expected much the same. This – this is progress. 

At the end of the fifth meeting, Rey asks if she can speak to Leia. Privately.

“Certainly,” Leia agrees, her voice cutting through the objections of her entourage, who haven’t trusted Rey since she turned up at Kylo Ren’s side. Leia stands, and moves to follow Rey. Rey leads Leia back to her office, and shuts the door behind them.

“You wanted to speak to me?” Leia asks.

Suddenly, Rey doesn’t know what to say. Leia has grown into a strong, wise leader, principled and kind, and none of it is because of Rey. Despite her, perhaps.

“I,” says Rey, and stops. “The thing is. I was once Anakin Skywalker.” _Darth Vader_ , she doesn’t say. She doesn’t need to.

“I know,” says Leia, and her voice is surprisingly gentle. “I’ve always known.”

“But – the first thing you did, the first time we met – you hugged me!” Rey exclaims, completely thrown.

But Leia’s expression is contemplative, and filled with a level of understanding which Rey doesn’t think she deserves.

“You know, the first time Luke told me there was good in you, I refused to believe it. But he turned out to be right. And when I met you, _this_ you, I could feel the goodness Luke had always talking about, spilling out of you like the light from a sun.” 

Leia is silent for a moment. 

“And in that moment, you were grieving for the same man I was, when everyone else was too busy celebrating victory to mourn him. That… made it easier to let you of who you’d once been. Besides – if I couldn’t believe in Darth Vader’s redemption, what hope was there for my son?”

Tears burn in Rey’s eyes.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” she whispers. Not from the daughter she tortured, whose family, people and homeworld she was complicit in destroying.

Leia smiles.

“Let me tell you a secret,” she says, her voice low and conspiratorial. “Forgiveness isn’t ever about what we deserve.”

She reaches out to Rey. Rey slowly takes her daughter’s hands.

“Thank you for bringing my son back to the Light,” says Leia, and her smile is sad and grateful at the same time.

“He’s still on the edge,” says Rey, because she doesn’t want to give Leia false confidence. “He could still fall again. I hope he won’t, but he could.”

“Then you’ll be there to catch him,” says Leia, and her voice is sure.

Rey doesn’t argue. She thinks it’s because now she’s gotten to know Ben, well…

Leia is probably right.

* * *

Ben’s been brooding over something for the last few weeks, but Rey doesn’t know what it is – doesn’t pry through their bond, because she and Ben have an implicit agreement not to do that to one another – until Ben says, 

“Don’t you think I deserve some kind of punishment for all I did under Snoke’s orders?”

Rey looks up, and considers him for a moment. The old Jedi Order would have punished him with execution for everything he’s done, but Rey is not one of them, not anymore. Maybe she never really was to begin with. She shrugs.

“I think penance is more productive than punishment.”

“Penance,” says Ben, like he doesn’t understand.

“The confession of all the bad deeds you have done, followed by a series of tasks to prove your repentance. Traditionally the person who assigns the tasks is a representative of a religious order, but on Tatooine… tasks of penance were decided by the person you had most wronged. And rather than punishments, they were usually about… teaching someone something, or learning a necessary lesson. So yes. Penance.”

Ben is silent at that. Rey takes it as progress.

She doesn’t know when Ben seeks out Leia. But when the second iteration of the New Republic flowers into full existence under the law, Ben signs up for voluntary service: assisting refugees from planets forced into terrible conditions by the First Order. Rey knows that he’s spoken to his mother at last.

* * *

Eventually, Rey returns to Ach-To. This time she goes alone, in a ship borrowed from the former Resistance fleet.

“I suppose you think I should go with you,” Ben says, when she makes her plan to return there known. “Apologise to him.”

“I think you should make your own decisions,” says Rey. Ben’s brow furrows, as though even after months of working together, he still doesn’t understand her. But he lets the subject drop without any more passive-aggression, for which Rey is grateful. It’s true that Luke treated Ben badly, the last time they met: but he had reasons some would find justified (the old Republic’s Jedi Order, for one thing) and in the end, Luke is still Rey’s beloved son.

When Rey reaches Ach-To and begins her descent towards the island, there is a figure standing waiting for her. Rey rushes the cruiser’s landing sequence, desperate to greet her son.

Rey’s first thought is that Luke seems much better than he did the last time she saw him. A moment later, she realises why. He is fully immersed in the Force once more, and some of the pain, the regret and bitterness have seeped away, leaving him closer to finding peace than he was before, when he was haunted by the past.

Rey strides forward and hugs him, beaming.

“You look so much better,” she tells him.

“You look… different,” is Luke’s response. Rey is wearing a simple-yet-elegant white combat suit, and sturdy white boots. Her lightsaber hangs from one hip. The outfit is strikingly similar to one which Padme used to wear. Rey chose the outfit half out of a sense of nostalgia, and half because the combat suit is as practical as it is elegant.

Rey’s hair is done in a style which Leia had favoured in her youth, or so she’d said. It was Leia who had taught Rey how to style her hair that way herself. 

Rey sees Luke eyeing it in a way that’s almost wistful.

“Leia taught me how to do my hair this way,” she says. “We’re… okay, I think. Good, even.”

“I’m glad,” says Luke, and his sincerity is a welcome change from the sarcasm and layers of deflection he’d used last time, before he and Rey had discovered who she used to be.

There’s a moment’s silence, as they both consider the changes in each other, and then Luke says, “So what happened after you left?”

It’s a long story, and Rey tells it over dinner. Dinner itself is composed of easily-preserved food packed into the ship’s larder, but it’s better than scavenger portions or Resistance ration bars, and definitely better than what Luke’s used to eating. Luke eats like he’s surprised to find that he is hungry. _Sea-cow milk will do that to you_ , Rey thinks – a little too loudly, as it turns out.

_ What? _ Ben thinks back in a mixture of surprise and irritation, and Rey sends back a brief explanation, along with an inadvertent memory of Luke milking a sea-cow and drinking the milk. She doesn’t mean to; it’s just that the desert-child horror of that memory has stayed with her. Anakin had felt much the same, the first time he’d realised that milk came from lactating animals.

Rey pauses halfway through her story to tell Luke, “Ben says that if you’ve been subsisting on sea-cow milk all this time, he almost feels sorry for you.”

Luke makes a bemused face, but says, “It’s really not that bad.”

“It’s gross, is what it is,” says Rey. “You’ve been drinking _bodily fluids_.”

“You do realise that they milk they produce is consumed by the sea-cows’ young?” says Luke, grinning. “It’s perfectly edible. Nutritious, even.”

“I really don’t care,” Rey tells him, before lapsing back into the flow of the story she’s been telling.

At the end of it, Luke looks old, and tired.

“I was so sure he couldn’t be redeemed,” he murmured. Rey doesn’t need to ask who he means. “What have I come to?”

“Youth and inexperience believes many things which age and wisdom does not,” says Rey, trying to reassure him.

Luke sighs, uncomforted. Rey lets him wallow in his guilt for a moment, before gently changing the subject.

“People keep asking me when I’m going to begin teaching an apprentice,” she says.

“Oh?” It’s clearly a question.

“I took down a would-be assassin in seconds,” says Rey. On the one hand, it was a shock, because Rey has never encountered assassins before; on the other, it was a familiar annoyance, because first Anakin and later Darth Vader was accustomed to such assassination attempts.

“They seemed much more impressed with my skills, after that,” Rey adds. “Also, apparently Finn’s friend Poe – Finn’s my best friend; he used to be a stormtrooper, but defected – spread it around that you trained me, and so now everyone thinks I’m your successor. Or something.”

Luke looks at her.

“I think you’d be a good teacher,” he says. Rey takes a gamble.

“I’d be even better if I had a fellow teacher,” she says.

Luke is silent, but to Rey’s surprise, he seems to genuinely be considering the idea. Progress, then.

Rey spends a week with her son. It’s strange; she finds herself playing the role of mentor to Luke, at the same time as he is the same to her. Mentor, and mentee: those roles are not easily distinguished where they are concerned. Rey is Luke’s father, with decades of lived experience; but she is also a young woman half his age, with the impulsiveness of youth. 

Luke must find it odd too, because every now and then he looks at Rey with an expression Rey cannot interpret. At times Luke looks to her for advice, while at others he chides her for her ignorance and offers her advice in turn. In the end, they settle into a strange symbiosis: both of them have something to offer each other; together, they guide one another.

After a week, Rey wakes up one morning in the berth aboard her ship, and decides that it’s time.

“I’m leaving at sunset,” she tells Luke as soon as she sees him, without preamble. “I want you to come with me.”

Luke makes a doubtful face. Rey finds that she understands it perfectly.

“Leia misses you terribly,” she adds.

“Leia wouldn’t want to see me,” says Luke, his head bowed. “Not after what I’ve done.”

Rey crosses her arms and glares, exasperated.

“Come with me.”

Before Luke can object Rey takes him by the elbow, and tugs him aboard the cruiser.

“Sit,” she tells him, and begins fiddling with the ship’s communications. It’s difficult to get a signal out here, so far from anywhere, but Rey manages it.

A moment later, Leia’s hologram flickers into existence.

“Rey,” she says, smiling.

“Leia,” says Rey. “I’m trying to convince Luke to return. He’s convinced you wouldn’t want to see him.”

Leia’s face softens.

“Of course I want to see him.”

“See?” says Rey, and pulls Luke to his feet and over into the range of the projector’s sensors.

“Rey, I don’t think–” Luke tries, and stops as Leia’s expression changes at the sound of his voice.

“ _Luke_ ,” she says, and then: “Come home. Please.” 

Luke’s face crumples.

“Leia, you don’t know what I’ve done – what I almost did–”

“Then tell me,” says Leia, both gentle and implacable. Rey slips out of the room to give them some privacy.

“Penance,” she murmurs to herself, and heads to the cockpit to make sure that the ship is ready to leave as soon as Luke is.

Luke appears an hour later, his eyes red, but standing unbowed as though a tremendous weight has been removed from his shoulders. He’s carrying a rucksack and acloth bundle.

“Thank you.”

“Ready to go?” Rey asks. Luke nods.

Rey begins the landing sequence as Luke settles into the co-pilot’s chair, his gaze following Rey’s hands as she flips switches and adjusts levers.

_ Don’t expect me to be polite to him.  _ Ben’s voice slides across her mind, and Rey smiles to herself, wry and rueful. She needs to get better at her shielding.

_ Then avoid him altogether, if you have to,  _ Rey thinks back. _But I’m allowed to care about both of you. And I missed him._

__

_ Did you miss me?  _ Ben asks. He’s carefully casual, but there’s a weight, a significance to his words that he can’t hide – not when the two of them are communicating mind-to-mind like this.

_ Of course I did.  _ Rey lets him feel her honest sincerity. _You’re my grandson, remember? Besides – after all that time working together to rebuild the New Republic, I’ve grown rather fond of you._

Ben doesn’t respond to her words. Rey didn’t expect him to. Instead he says, _Your friend Finn has been pestering me about when you’re going to be back. Before that he was pestering my mother, but I suspect she told him that I’d have a better idea than she would._ Rey caught a glimpse of grudging admiration for Leia’s tactics.

Rey can’t help smiling. Her family may be small, and broken – but however dysfunctional it is, it’s still there. And Rey is at the centre of it, holding everything together. Building bridges where the old ones had been burned to the ground. 

_Tell him and Leia that I’ll be back in a day or so,_ Rey says to Ben. _I’ll see you all then._

__

Rey is looking forward to it.


End file.
